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Throwing Stones

Summary:

There are very few things that can truly anger Yvelont - even Zenos is merely exhausting - and with less than five minute's conversation this envoy has managed it.

Notes:

Begins near the end of the cutscene in the Lotus Stands. Yvelont is my warrior of light, and he is not impressed with happenings here. Maybe someday I'll write some follow up, maybe not.

Was originally written in the wee hours on twitter, and not even editting can convert some of the pacing from twitter-style to prose-style.

The title comes from the saying 'those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'. Exactly who it refers to here I am uncertain, but it is certainly someone.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Yvelont stands by his stance that a failure to withhold aid one is capable of giving is to condemn those who die, is to kill them no less than to wield the blade, but that is not the root of his... displeasure. Neither is it his own views being condemned as simple, though the urge to point out exactly whose fault his lack of knowledge is is stopped only by frustration swallowing his throat.

No, it is the sheer... sheer... Yvelont does not have the word, but is certain their must be one. Vitriol, then, even if it fits poorly. The sheer vitriol with which the man faces his own children.

Yvelont may have no memory of his parents, but he remembers his aunt. He remembers very clearly how she never wanted a child - let alone a foreign, strange one of another race - but even she,even her teenage brother - manage to treat him with kindness and respect. There are few reasons one might disown one they love. His aunt loved him, Yvelont thinks. Her brother did not, but he was never asked to - and Yvelont is still listed as his sister's child, still entitled to what little protection and rights it bares, for all he was sent away.

The man who speaks is not one who seems to do it for protection, and so he can be but condemned - and the twins were looking forward to seeing this - this-

Yvelont is bad with words. It is at times like these he wishes for anything but.

Fourchenault Leveilleur turns to leave, and Yvelont's fingers reach for a weapon he did not bring. A moment later and G'raha Tia slips his own fingers into that hand, a quiet warning of 'don't' hidden behind the Elder Seedseer's calling.

After a refusal to fight on the grounds it is 'barbaric' and 'uncouth', a refusal to engage in the mere basics of diplomacy either can only be rooted in something else. Given the posturing and language, superiority.

The man is gone and his children call for him. G'raha finally releases Yvelont's hand, though it takes only one look to redirect his attention from the exit to the twins.

Their expressions do not calm his fury, but something else overpowers it. He goes up to them, and stands with them to offer what support he can. He places one hand on each of their shoulders, curled almost protectively past them, and trying to turn their attention back from the exit and from their father.

If only the other Scions were here, the people who had known them for years and might be capable of reassuring them. Anyone, after that, needs reassurance Yvelont is not sure he is placed to, or capable of, giving. Still he tries to, because for all they are adults they are children, and even an adult would be hard=pressed to deal with such treatment. What they need is to know they are loved, and he does his best to prove it in his gesture even as he plots their father's demise.

And then, before he can think of anything to say, in comes a Sylph with another crisis, and wounds are still bleeding - not even patched over with a spell, let alone properly seen to - but there is no time to deal with it. For the life of one who has chosen to protect is a life without stopping; if you are not dying you must carry on - and even then, like in the First, you may have to carry on lest condemn so many more than yourself. It is a life all of the scions, the four in the Lotus Stand included, have willingly chosen as their own. There is no time for these things, not until the world stops burning. Yvelont knows this, Alisaie and Alphinaud know this, and so they ignore their own feelings and press on.

(The timing of the crisis and the fact an envoy was not expected at all, let alone one who merely came to refuse their plea - and disown his children - is suspicious, though Yvelont will not think of that until later. Neither of Amaurot, who likewise turned inwards, and for it fell.)

So on they go to the Canopy, and further still to Carteneau. The wicked do not rest, and so their opposition must ever run to keep up and work harder yet. By the time the battle is done, none of the three of them will be awake enough to think.

Still...

If Krile does manage to get them to Sharlayan, even after this setback...

Well.

Then this Fourchenault Leveilleur had better be very, very careful, lest Fandaniel's interpretation of the end of the universe be the least of his problems.

Notes:

I maintain that Fourchenault Leveilleur deserves each and ever bug that Yvelont put in his hair as a toddler, but that is a story for another day. And one which is not yet written at all.